


No Title for a Cause

by troiing



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-01
Updated: 2014-03-01
Packaged: 2018-01-14 03:54:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1251787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/troiing/pseuds/troiing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I've felt very alone for a very long time."</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Title for a Cause

"He was one of my oldest friends."

It's the smallest of tributes, really: little more than a few rocks piled down by the water, the familiar medicine bag leaning against them. It occurs to him that, in all the hustle and bustle of getting situated here and now, she hasn't had time to mourn. He's silent. Nikola isn't much good at sentimentalities; he never was.

"Was it worth it, Nikola? So many friends died for this. For my cause."

"Now who's being megalomaniacal?" he finally asks, the faintest note of teasing in his otherwise somber tone. She clenches her fists silently in the brief silence that follows. "He died for what he believed in, just as you were prepared to do. This was never only your cause."

She's silent for a long moment, and he takes the opportunity to seat himself beside her. "I've felt very alone for a very long time."

The words are made all the more poignant by her lack of eye contact, but he cannot help but both pity and blame her. Helen has been alone for many years greatly by her own choosing. She's kept them all in the dark; the pity is that she's felt she had to. And maybe it was necessary. He exhales sharply through his nose, eyes on the grass between his feet. When he looks at her again, she has tilted her head away from him, but her posture tells him all he needs to know. And of course, as things usually are with a pained Helen Magnus, his heart lurches and he feels the urgent need to comfort her. Helen has the world under her thumb, and she doesn't know it. Or maybe she does.

Before he knows it, his hand is over hers, then the backs of his fingers are clenched against her thigh. She turns her head just enough that he knows she is gazing down at her own fingers wrapped up in his.

"Nikola. James, Ravi, even John - "

"Stop blaming yourself. They made their own decisions."

"And if I led them down that path?"

"You didn't forcibly drag them, Helen. If they followed you down any path, it was because they knew that what you stood for was worth something." The words are strange on his tongue and lips, strange even in cadence and tone. He wonders if it's his own voice. Has William been rubbing off on him?

He stares at her, willing her to look at him, and she does, if only to peer questioningly at him through damp lashes. His usual grin is missing; he stares back awhile, and it is Helen who finally breaks, shoulders heaving once as she lowers her gaze. He's pulling her hand away from her leg, into the space between them, and then up to his mouth, where he kisses the bend of her fingers with tender purpose.

"Don't."

"Why not?"

It's impossible to say that she does not deserve or want his comfort or pity; she doesn't know what drives him, and she's not quite that honest. She only looks at him, and the darkness in her wet gaze greets him like a bullet. She doesn't mean to hurt him, but she immediately feels that she has. One more to add to the tally, really.

But Nikola surprises her, because he does not make a snide retort, nor does he walk away. He merely shifts his hold on her from one hand to the other and reaches out to her. "Come here," he commands as he clears tears from her gaze with a thumb. Her eyes close and she shakes her head minutely. "Helen." Stern. " _Come_." Coaxing. She hesitates, then caves, slipping off of her heels and leaning into him while he wraps one arm around her, still holding her hand firmly within his own.

No amount of time around William will put the right words into his mouth at all the right times, and he can't find a more gracious, _less Nikola_ way to say what's on the tip of his tongue. And so, after a brief pause, he merely mumbles: "Good girl."

She shivers against him.


End file.
